Tom
by Luv10885
Summary: What were the powers and circumstances that turned the boy Tom Riddle into Lord Voldemort? What could posses someone to live a life of such evil and hatred? See the transformation from a love-starved boy to a hate-driven monster through the eyes of the bo


He knelt over the bodies of the only family he had left and wept. These were no quiet tears of love lost, but the angry, hurt, and bitter tears wrenched from the soul of a boy who had been betrayed by those he had been tied to by blood. Refusal hadn't even been the word for it. Laughter. Mocking, deliberate, cruel laughter. And now he sat on the floor of the home, that should have rightfully been his, on his hands and knees, sobbing. He sobbed until every tear he had left in him was gone forever. He cried until all that was left was the anger. The anger that fueled him. That would later drive him. He stood slowly and surveyed his surroundings. He could move the bodies. He could even bury them easily enough, but what was the point? No. He left them as they had last been. In their house with their eyes staring blankly around them, unseeing. They had never seen him and now they would never see again.

It was his turn to rule now. It was his turn to be superior. Never again would he allow himself to be mocked. Never again would he allow himself to feel anything. Pain, remorse, compassion. Weakness. Emotions had ruled him once. And they had nearly destroyed his life tonight as they had his mother's before him. The noble descendant of Salazar Slytherin had lowered herself to the whim of a Muggle and had paid dearly for her weakness. And then she had made her son pay as well. Muggles, he thought sourly, were the problem. One that, like any problem, should be dealt with forthwith. It was time. It was time to become who he was fated to be. His life as Tom Riddle was ending, but Lord Voldemort would rise in his place. And what a place he would have. Acknowledgement wasn't enough anymore. A mention in passing would no longer suffice. It was time. All would know his name and they would fear it. He had entered the house of his father as Tom Riddle, a boy craving love and recognition. He left it as Lord Voldemort, one who was more than a man. He left as a god who would demand tribute.

_Seventeen Years Earlier:_

"Tom!" the beautiful woman sobbed, dropping to her knees and all but crawled to the man before her. The man who had once looked at her with such love and kindness was now looking upon her with disgust and loathing. He pulled his foot back as she reached for it. "Tom, please!" she pleaded. "It doesn't have to be this way!"

"What did you expect?" the man asked, his lip curling back in disgust. "That you would tell me what you are, that you would show me proof of your…your abnormality and I would still want you? You expected me to accept you into my home, the home of my family, knowing what that child in your womb will one day become? You abhorrent creature." He looked like he wanted to strike her, but his breeding decreed otherwise. To strike a woman, even one such as this, was unforgivable. "Leave my sight." He all but snarled.

"Tom, why are you doing this? What about our child?" the woman wept, her blonde hair tangled around her elegant face. His face contorted into a mask of fury.

"I have no child. You no longer exist to me," he whispered, his voice laced with venom. He left her there, on her hands and knees crying for her circumstance, for her loss, and for the child who would never know his father.

Another contraction bore down on her and she screamed, writhing in pain.

"You must calm yourself, madam," the Healer told her. "You may very well hurt the babe."

She took long, deep breaths as she felt the pain subside. She couldn't hurt her child. It was all she had left of her love. He was her life now. Her mind drifted, as it often did, to happier times. Times of laughter and light when she and Tom had been so very much in love. He was going to marry her. He was going to marry her and they would have a wonderful life. He told her of his family; they would love her, he said. He was like no man, Muggle or otherwise, she had ever met. Blood was important to her. As a descendent of Salazar Slytherin, it had to be. But Tom…Tom wasn't just a Muggle. He was…

"AAHHH!" she screamed, tightening her hands on the rails of her bed. "Make it stop!" she cried.

"You're almost there, madam," the Healer promised. "I can see the wee babe's head now. A few more pushes, there's a good girl."

Edged on by the thought of seeing her child, she bore down. She felt a tearing, searing pain and called out Tom's name. She felt her child slip from her body and she relaxed herself, exhausted. She vaguely heard the Healer tell her that she had a beautiful son.

"I want to see him. Let me hold him!" she demanded, holding her arms out. She felt the pleasant weight of her child in her arms and looked down at him. All color that was left drained from her face. He was surely his father's son. His face screwed up in rage, his fists balled, he cried out. His hair was black and lay flat on his perfectly round head, and his eyes…gods, his eyes. They were black. No fleck of brown or amber or even grey hinted here. Tom stared back at her and she knew that he was his father's son. She pushed him away again. "Take him," she told the Healer quietly.

"But, madam," the Healer said in confusion.

"TAKE HIM!" she screamed. The Healer hurriedly took her son from her arms and she turned her face away. She couldn't bear to look at him. The reminder…it hurt so badly.

"Will…will you be wanting to feed him, madam?" the Healer asked carefully.

"No. Do what you will with him," she said. But before she let the Healer walk away, she called out. When the Healer turned, she told her, "His name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. Never forget that name." The Healer looked confused, but nodded. She walked out of the room with the baby, leaving the woman to her thoughts.

She thought back to Tom. To her Tom, the love of her life, with his black eyes and, now she knew, blacker heart. She would never see him again. She knew that now. Looking at her son, so much like his father, had told her as much. The sadness hit her, as it always did. She lifted the glass full of water from her bedside table and looked into its clear depths, thinking of her son. Her poor Tom who would grow up without his father. She smashed the glass on the rail of her bed, holding one of the now blood-covered shards in her fist. He would grow up without his mother as well. She lowered the sharp implement to her wrists, hissing in pain as she felt the glass slide through skin. It went deeper, deeper, through muscle until it hit its mark. Her vein sliced open, and crimson wetness began to cover her wrist where it lay on her lap. The color spread onto the white cotton sheet. She repeated the process with both wrists, pleased when she began to feel lightheaded. The worries of this world seemed to lift away, and she thought once more of both her Toms, a small smile gracing her angelic face. She loved and hated them both equally. She heard a child's cry from somewhere down the hall just before she closed her eyes a final time.

_Seven Years Earlier:_

Another fist slammed into the side of his head, and he saw black for a second before shaking the feeling off. Passing out wasn't the best plan. He was fair game if he couldn't defend himself. He pushed back against the boy who'd hit him, who was taunting him. Cruel words clouded his mind and he felt his anger at the boy growing. He just wished that the boy would feel every pain he was inflicting on him. And then the boy cried out, clutching his face. A mark arose, plainly in the shape of a small fist on his cheek. Confused and angry, thinking that perhaps Tom had gotten a hit in somehow, he growled, punching Tom in the gut as hard as he could. Both boys doubled over in pain. The boy's friends were asking him what was wrong, why he was acting this way. He couldn't answer; he just stared at Tom, his eyes widening. Tom glared, putting all of his emotions into the look. The boy squirmed away then, calling his comrades away.

Tom leaned back on the cold tile of the floor of the Orphanage and closed his eyes. He knew how he must look: covered in blood and bruises. Nothing that the Sisters hadn't seen before. But he never told who did it to himthere was no pride in that. And if Tom was anything, it was prideful.

"Tom," he heard the sweet voice of one of the Sisters and opened his eyes. She was smiling down at him; he knew she wanted to know who had done this to him, just as she knew that he would never tell. So instead she said, "You have a letter, Tom." Tom looked confused. A letter? Who would write to him? He didn't know anyone outside the Orphanage.

"Who…" he began.

"Well, the man who's delivered it is waiting for you in the other room."

Obediently, Tom followed. The man waiting was tall with sparkling blue eyes and graying hair. He smiled at Tom, who frowned. He patted the seat beside him. Tom sat, his eyes never leaving the man's face.

"Hello, Tom," the man said. His voice pleasant, and yet, Tom decided, he didn't like him.

"Hello," Tom said automatically in response.

"Do you know why I'm here, Tom? Or who I am?" the man asked.

Tom thought this was a stupid question. "No," he said simply.

"My name is Albus Dumbledore, and I'm the Assistant Headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Tom raised an eyebrow at this. "Since you have no parents, and your guardians are the nuns here at the Orphanage, I felt obligated to come here and explain your rather…unusual future myself." His eyes twinkled and Tom frowned again.

_Six Months Earlier:_

"Oh, come on, Tom, it's a stupid name," his fellow Slytherin told him.

Tom fixed his eyes on the boy. "My parents deserted me before I was even born. Do you think I will keep the wretched name they gave me? Tom Marvolo Riddle," he said the name with no little amount of disgust. He knew what his classmates did not. He knew that his mother was the direct descendent of Salazar Slytherin and that his father was a Muggle. A Muggle whom he was directly named for. It just would not do. "Lord Voldemort is what you will call me when we are alone. I won't have it any other way. And," he said loudly when the other boy went to correct him once again, "you would do well not to contradict me." He gazed down at the shorter boy, who immediately looked away. Tom smiled. His eyes, black as night, had the desired effect on most anyone. To look into them too long was a foolish thing indeed. They would learn.

"So are both of your parents dead, Tom?" another boy asked.

Tom pursed his lips. "No, my father lives. He's formed another family. A wife, a son. My grandfather lives with them. I've heard that it's quite the grand house. I'll go there one day and it will all be mine," he said more to himself than anyone.

"Why not now?" the boy asked. Tom fixed his piercing glare on the boy, who didn't look away. Tom smiled, stepping towards the boy. He leaned down, looking the boy in the eyes; they were inches away from each other now.

"Because, fool, I have not mastered the skills I will need before leaving Hogwarts." He leaned closer, their noses nearly touching. Tom's eyes bore into the other boy's. Finally, with a shudder, the boy looked away and Tom straightened. "Because dealing with my…family…is my last step towards my goal."

"And that goal is?" another boy, the stupidest of their group, asked. A smile slowly crept over Tom's face.

"Power," he said quietly, his eyes flashing.

_One Hour Earlier:_

A soft hum of voices floated down to Tom from where he walked up the hill. They would be eating dinner now. Enjoying whatever marvelous meal their cook had prepared. Their wealth sickened him, and at the same time fascinated him. While he had spent years suffering for his every meal at that blasted Orphanage, they had been handed everything on a silver platter. _He_ had been handed everything. Tom stopped at the door.

"Alohomora," he whispered, and heard the lock click. With a flick of his wrist the door opened, a vicious breeze rushing past Tom, whipping his robes around his legs, and through the house. "Oh, Father," he called, walking through the foyer. They had a foyer. How…_quaint_. Soon he stood in the doorway of the dining hall, surveying the people there.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" the old man—his _Grandfather_—demanded, attempting to rise from his chair.

"Sit," Tom commanded. With another flick of his wrist, his Grandfather's behind was slammed back into his high-backed chair and his mouth shut with an audible 'crack'.

His father was staring at him, mouth slack. Tom grinned. Oh, yes. He knew. It must be like looking at a younger version of himself, Tom thought. He'd seen a picture of his father as a young man and knew that they were very similar. But, oh, how they were different. Tom was surprised, however, to feel the need for approval from his father. From all of them. They were, although all parties involved hated to admit it, his only family. He thought then that perhaps…perhaps they would accept him, as they hadn't his mother. Perhaps…perhaps if he explained to them about the Wizarding world and all he had to offer it, they would be proud. Perhaps they could be a family.

"Hello, Father," he said again. "I believe we have much to discuss."


End file.
